


Six Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2018 [26]
Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Abuse, Anger Management, Angst, Child Abuse, Depression, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Mental Health Issues, Past Sexual Abuse, Strong Language, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:32:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: So, therapy is fun.And Gary’s not the only Bullworth Academy kid- or adult- in his group.





	1. Chapter 1

_Slow and Steady Wins the Race!_  
  
There was a green turtle with a goofy smile standing in the middle of a green field with a nice, shiny sun rising up behind him.  
  
Gary wanted to punch that fucking turtle in the face.  
  
But he sensed that the perky, toothpaste-ad Stepford-smiler sitting at the head of their merry band of lunatics might take issue with that. If, of course, whatever he was currently on would _allow_ him to take issue with anything; Gary had never had the stuff himself, but he’d heard that cocaine is a hell of a drug, and he couldn’t think of what else could be making this sucker into such a _freak_.  
  
“Alrighty! How is everyone doing today?” The Stepford-smiler, their counselor, received a general murmur of ‘fine’ and ‘eh’. There were five other people in this little group of theirs (apart from Gary and Stepford-smiler), and each one seemed about as eager to be there as the last- that was to say, not at all. Gary said nothing, because ‘go fuck yourself’ would unquestionably end badly for him. His mother had made it aggressively clear that he was not to fuck up this opportunity, or he _would_ be in an institution for as long as she was physically capable of forcing him to stay there. His cheek was still scratched from where her ring nicked his face when she’d smacked him the day before; she had clearly never read ‘The Parents’ Guide to Successfully Abusing Your Child 101’, because Gary was reasonably certain there was a chapter in there about how leaving marks was a bad idea.  
  
In any case, Mommy Dearest made her point and made it well, so Gary was going to do his best to _behave_ himself in therapy, and in this (dumb-ass) group session he was being forced to attend as well.  
  
He didn’t think it could get any worse, really: Jimmy had beaten him, he’d been arrested, he’d been threatened with institutionalization, gotten a new diagnosis, he’d been forced into therapy and onto a whole new battery of medication, and really, right before he’d walked into the room a few minutes before, Gary thought that he really was about as far down as he was going to get in this whole fucking clusterfuck of an episode.  
  
And now he had the turtle.  
  
And Mr. Galloway.  
  
And Karl Branting.  
  
And Wade Martin.  
  
And Ted Thompson.  
  
And Ricky Pucino.  
  
So now, _officially_ at Rock Bottom Inc., Gary had this asshole turtle, a teacher from his school, and four classmates who all had gratuitous reason to hate his guts and want him dead.  
  
We’re done, folks! Everybody off the elevator, because we’ve now hit the ground floor of Hell!  
  
_Hopkins and I must be the only kids to fall through a fucking sky-light and **not** die,_ Gary thought, slouching slightly in his seat. He had to behave himself, but he didn’t have to look happy about it.  
  
The Stepford Smiler- _HI, MY NAME IS **ALTON!**_ \- smiled at them all in a way that suggested, at least to Gary, that he was one of those Angel Dust addicts who’d found Jesus and now wanted to save other fucked-up people from themselves.  
  
“I feel like we should start off with some _ice-breakers,_ since we’re going to be navigating the rough and snowy path of mental and emotional recovery for the next few weeks together!”  
  
Gary’s eyes rolled shut.  
  
_Please, God, end my fucking existence **immediately.** Put me and everyone else here out of this misery._  
  
“Now, who wants to go first?”  
  
[---]  
  
Gary’s diagnosis was both predictable and _not_.  
  
To a professional physician or psychologist, early-onset schizophrenia was perhaps not the most predictable diagnosis one could find in a teenage year-old boy; indeed, they were still not completely sure it _was_ schizophrenia. One of them was apparently arguing that it might be bipolar disorder, or something else that might affect Gary’s mood, and that some of the other ‘symptoms’ are behaviors he’d developed over time as a result of poor coping mechanisms becoming internalized.  
  
Or whatever, because really, Gary was a genius but that shit was _boring._ Have you ever had to listen to two psychologists get into a jargon-filled argument before? It was like listening to the Nerds speak that Tolkien-elf-shit back and forth. It was almost impossible to keep up with, especially since his brain wasn’t moving quite as fast as it did before the medication.  
  
Regardless of whatever diagnosis the professionals wanted to duke it out over, the one that was currently stamped on Gary’s file was ‘Early Onset Schizophrenia’ and for now, that’s what he was starting to be medicated for. He didn’t necessarily believe it- frankly, he thought these assholes just didn’t want to admit that there was nothing wrong with him, that he was just a genius asshole by nature- but if it got them (and his parents) off his back, then whatever.  
  
Besides, he was being threatened with institutionalization if he didn’t take this new medication and course of treatment seriously, and Gary definitely did not want to end up in a place like Happy Volts.  
Ideally, the doctor had wanted to put Gary in a group with other people with schizophrenia, or at least people with similar illnesses- people he could identify with and develop a ‘ _support network_ ’ (Gary had gagged a little at the idea). But as it turned out, his parents were far more willing to shell out money to buy his way back into Bullworth Academy than they were to ship him a few towns over to visit with a schizophrenia-focused group (or at least mostly) based group.  
  
“Mrs. Smith, I don’t know how effective this local group will be,” Dr. Pilby had said uneasily, “This is a mostly trauma-based group, with people discussing the effect of various negative events in their lives; Gary would benefit much more from a group of people with a similar diagnosis-”  
  
“He’ll go to the local group, and that’s the end of it,” His mother had said, in that _tone_ she used whenever she wanted you to know that she was well and truly _done_ with this conversation and that she wouldn’t acknowledge you if you kept speaking.

In that moment Gary’s eyes had met Pilby’s, and it seemed like maybe the good doctor had finally figured out where Gary’s more destructive behavioral problems had come from.  
  
It wasn’t difficult to figure out. Mommy Dearest’s social circle wasn’t based in Bullworth, but rather in New York (where the Smiths had moved after shipping Gary off to Bullworth). If Gary went to a group based in Bullworth, his little ‘problem’ would stay contained to the town; if he went to a non-local group, the odds of someone discovering that Helena Smith’s son was a nutcase that had taken over a school (Gary’s name had never been released in the paper) would be much higher, and _God fucking forbid_ that anyone find out that Gary was less than perfect.  
  
God forbid.  
  
“Gary?” Dr. Pilby asked, startling Gary- he wasn’t accustomed to the doctors his mother hired to fix him asking his opinion. “What do you think?”  
  
“Local,” Gary said quickly, because that was the only acceptable answer that wouldn’t end in his mother running him over with the car when they got outside. “Local. Whatever. That works.”  
  
He could feel his mother’s eyes boring into the side of his head.  
  
“Alright then,” Pilby sighed. “We’ll try that.”


	2. Chapter 2

First up was Mr. Galloway.  
  
Galloway’s predicament was- drum-roll please- _alcohol addiction!_ Cue the fireworks and the party-poppers, because this was such a goddamn surprise and _literally no one saw it coming!_  
  
Well, at least the guy was being honest about it now.  
  
“It started in college,” Galloway said, fidgeting and looking anywhere but at peoples’ faces. “My father- well, he wasn’t very supportive of my desire to major in English, thought I ought to be pursuing more ‘useful’ avenues. And with the stress of the coursework and the fight to make enough money so that I could stay in college- it was all just so _much_ , and I mean-” Galloway snorted, throwing up his hands. “-it’s not like it’s hard to find alcohol on a college campus.”  
  
Gary was pretty sure that having a teacher in a therapy group with his students was something that didn’t happen outside of Bullworth- conflict of interests, and all that. But hey, rumors for the rumor-mill.  
  
“But it didn’t stop there, did it Lionel?” Alton, the Stepford-Smiling Counselor prodded with that smug, sanctimonious I-know-what’s-best bullshit that made Gary want to kick him in the balls.  
  
“No,” Galloway admitted, wringing his hands. “It kept up after college. I got hired to teach, and it kept being a problem. I was coming to work completely drunk, or at least hungover. It was miserable: I was constantly afraid of being caught at it on campus, and it was obvious that my teaching-skills were slipping over the course of the year. I don’t remember half of last year’s classes.”  
  
“No kidding,” Wade muttered.  
  
“Excuse me, Wade,” Alton trilled, smiling sweetly at the Bully. “We’re listening right now, not talking!”  
  
Wade rolled his eyes shut.  
  
Gary wanted to scream.  
  
_God, what a condescending tool._  
  
Galloway seemed to have the wind taken out of him with Wade’s remark, though. Maybe it had reminded him that he was surrounded by kids that he would be teaching next year, and nothing shook your authority like admitting that you had a habit of showing up to work three-sheets to the wind. Maybe it was just good old fashioned embarrassment kicking in. Or, maybe he’d realized that he’d all but admitted to bringing alcohol onto campus to a group of his own students, and maybe he wanted to shut up before he did more damage to himself. “Uh… But yes. It’s just recently that I’ve managed to kick the habit.”  
  
“And how long have you been sober, Lionel?”  
  
“About four months, now.”  
  
“And how do you _cope_ with the urge to drink? How do you resist the temptation to go back to the bottle?”  
  
Gary started counting the little squares on the turtle’s shell as Galloway fumbled for a response. “Uh… Well… I suppose finding substitutes helps.”  
  
Ten. Ten squares on the shell.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
_Crystal_ _meth?_ Gary wanted to suggest. Meth would make Galloway a thousand times more interesting than alcohol.  
  
“Crochet.”  
  
Of course.  
  
“Computer games, like solitaire.”  
  
“ _Ooh_ ,” Alton cringed. “Maybe wanna be careful with that! A gambling addiction would be a poor substitute for alcoholism!”  
  
Galloway stared at him. “It’s not… For money? It’s built onto the computer. There’s no gambling involved.”  
  
“All the same, it’s best not to-”  
  
Alton launched into a speech about how ‘addictive behaviors’ could come from nowhere, and Gary’s gaze rolled around to the others in the group. Karl was as stoic as ever, sitting up straight in his chair; all to be expected, given his reputation as the most straight-laced of the Prefects. Ted’s arms and legs were crossed, and he was staring blankly at the wall opposite of him: There was a poster of a spunky little puppy, an ironic parallel to Gary’s bitch-turtle, that was surely the bane of his existence as well now. Ricky was playing with a loose button on his jacket, apparently trying to tighten the miniscule threads through the buttonholes again. Wade was glaring at the clock and tapping his foot against the floor.  
  
_Rumors for the rumor-mill._ Gary would have had a field-day last year if he’d known these guys were in therapy- he would have used that information left and right, for bargaining and to gain power. Galloway was obvious enough, but where Ted and Karl were concerned: The Jock leader and a Prefect, in group-therapy? It tickled Gary’s insatiable sense of curiosity, made him hungry to know exactly why it was they were here- it had to be _bad_ for them to actually submit to it at all. Wade and Ricky, whatever, but Galloway, Ted, and Karl actually had something to _lose_ by some of their more private struggles being made public.  
  
Maybe there _was_ a benefit in knuckling-through these sessions.  
  
“So there must be some _other_ ways we can fight addiction without turning to new ones, right?” Alton was saying. Galloway’s brow was furrowed, and Gary sensed he was irritated. That was a plus: If the only other adult in the group was pissed off, maybe something would get done. In Gary’s experience, when kids complained about this sort of thing nothing got done at all, and the kids were told to stop lying about their therapists for attention and to avoid taking responsibility.  
  
(Alright, so, Gary might have been projecting a bit.  
  
The point was, people didn’t listen to kids.)  
  
“Boys? Do _you_ have any suggestions?”  
  
_Oh, are we allowed to talk now? That’s nice._  
  
_Fuck off._  
  
“He could always try painting,” Gary suggested sweetly, batting his eyes at Alton in the most saccharine way he could.  
  
“He _could_ , Gary!” Alton said cheerfully, clapping his hands. “He _could!_ ” He turned away to ask Karl for suggestions, and Gary’s cheerful expression slipped away. He rolled his eyes shut and slapped both hands over his face, shaking his head.  
  
_What a fuckin’ **tool.**_  
  
Gary opened his eyes again with great difficulty.  
  
And he would swear he caught Galloway smiling.  
  
[---]  
  
Oh, and of course one-on-one therapy was part of the package too.  
  
Gary had heard stories about Dr. Bambillo being a quack, an alcoholic on par with Galloway, an asshole to match- well- Gary himself. And so he couldn’t say that he was thrilled to realize that he was going to be having these little meetings with the good doctor for the next…  
  
…Eternity, basically.  
  
Whenever it was that Mommy Dearest decided she didn’t want to pay for them anymore, basically.  
  
“Gary Smith,” Bambillo greeted when Gary stepped into the office. “I’ve heard so much about you.”  
  
“Doesn’t that disqualify you from treating me?”  
  
“This is therapy, Gary, not Jury Duty. Sit down.”  
  
And Gary sat.  
  
Not because he was suddenly a good boy, not because he just so badly wanted to poor his black little heart out to the nice doctor-man, but because if he didn’t at least _pretend_ to take this seriously his mother would make him regret it in ways he didn’t even want to think about. That fit he’d thrown at his grandmother’s funeral when he was eight- the fallout from that was _nothing_ compared to how she’d been when she and his dad had shown up at the police-station following the riot. If Gary didn’t take this seriously, she’d fucking kill him.  
  
“So,” Bambillo said, putting (what Gary assumed was his) a file away on his desk and folding his hands on his lap. No notebook- wasn’t that part of the stereotypical therapist’s arsenal? “I sense that you’re not someone who likes to waste time, or talk about the weather when you know we’re here for something else. So I’m gonna cut right to the chase: You started at riot at your school last year. You turned the factions in the school against one another and positioned yourself at the top, presumably because you suffer from an untreated mental illness which, at this time, a doctor has diagnosed as ‘early-onset schizophrenia.’”  
  
Gary shrugged, leaned back in his chair a bit. “So you’re skeptical too?”  
  
Bambillo countered with a shrug of his own. Looked like he was trying to play the Consumate Professional, at least for the time-being. “It’s an unusual diagnosis for someone under eighteen- you’re, what, sixteen?- and I find that usually there are other reasonably plausible diagnoses that fit the same bill. That being said, Dr. Pilby’s a great doctor and I trust his judgment, and so if he thinks this is what you have, then I’m going to respond accordingly.”  
  
“And what do you want from me?”  
  
“Do you agree with the diagnosis?”  
  
Gary hesitated, wary. There was a right answer to this question, and it was ‘yes, of course I agree with the doctor, I am a humble little nugget that respects the wisdom of my elders.’ To be fair, Pilby _did_ seem to know what he was talking about, and he wasn’t the worst person he’d ever met. Still…  
  
“I’m sensing some conflict.”  
  
Gary rolled his jaw. “I dunno.”  
  
“You don’t know if you buy the diagnosis? That’s fine. Present me with your evidence, and I’ll take it under consideration.”  
  
This was bait. It was _obviously_ bait. But Gary had never been good at resisting an argument. “I know what I was doing. I was in my right mind.”  
  
Bambillo raised an eyebrow at that. “So, you’re claiming that everything you did was the result of clear-headed logic. You know some people would say you belong in prison, not therapy, for that? They'd call you a psychopath for saying things like that.”  
  
“Would _you?_ ”  
  
“Maybe.” Bambillo reached over and picked up the file again, flipping through it until he found what he was looking for. “It says here that you claim you overheard your friends- Misters Peter Kowalski and James Hopkins- conspiring against you last year. There were multiple reports, mostly claiming that you heard these conspiracies second-hand from other people- but one in particular you claim you heard through your bedroom wall, which borders Mr. Hopkins.”  
  
Gary’s eyes narrowed. “I heard them,” He insisted. “They were talking about me.”  
  
“What were they saying, specifically?”  
  
“I dunno.” Bambillo was _really_ not cut out for the therapy business; the man already looked exhausted, and Gary’s pretty sure you shouldn’t tip off your patient to how much they’re bugging you. But then, one of those things he’d heard through the grapevine was how little patience Bambillo had. “I don’t remember,” Gary responded, giving Bambillo a look. “It was almost a year ago, how am I supposed to remember exactly what they said?”  
  
“Give me the _gist_ of it, then,” Bambillo sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  
  
Gary struggled to remember, but it had faded somewhat over the last year. But he’d heard them. He’d _heard_ them through the damn walls, giggling and talking about how they were going to fuck him over, how they were going to sabotage his attempts at taking over the school because he was such a boring loser. Gary had laid awake in bed listening, head pounding with rage over it all. He'd heard the whispering in the halls, the other students gossiping behind his back about how Jimmy was going to sabotage his plans, and how Petey was helping him.  
  
“Something about me being a loser and wanting to screw me over. Happy?”  
  
Bambillo thought for a moment. Then his eyes lit up, and he sat up a little straighter. “You shared a room with Kowalski, and your shared room was next to your friend Hopkins’s.”  
  
“‘Friend’ is a stretch, but yeah: Petey shared a room with me, but he would spend time in Jimmy’s, which was next door.”  
  
Bambillo nodded easily, apparently right on the track he wanted to be on. “Is your bed against the wall? The wall that separates your rooms?”  
  
Gary frowned. It actually took him a second to remember; he’d spent most of the year hiding in the attic. “No, not really. The foot of my bed touches it.” Where is he going with this?  
  
But Bambillo looked like he had just sprung a brilliant trap. “So you heard a conversation that was occurring- what- probably ten feet away from you, through a wall, and your friends were speaking loudly enough for you to hear them… Even though they had a reasonable expectation that you might overhear them?”  
  
Gary stared at him.  
  
_What is he saying?_  
  
Well, screw, Gary _knew_ what he was saying, he was just trying to find a way to poke a hole in the logic. But Bambillo, despite being a quack and a half, had actually made an interesting point.  
  
But Gary _knew_ what he heard. He knew it.  
  
(Didn’t he?)


	3. Chapter 3

Ricky Pucino was next.  
  
Ricky- and this one _was_ a bit unexpected- had PTSD.  
  
“Got into, uh, a car crash when I was thirteen. My dad died in it. So I can work on cars, but I can’t really _ride_ in them, or drive them.”  
  
_Is_ **_that_** _why you’re the only Greaser I haven’t see doing illegal donuts in the gas station parking lot?_ Gary was tempted to ask. But it did answer the question as to why Ricky was the only Greaser who hadn’t been spotted in a car, despite being nearly eighteen. It also explained why he was one of the few that had never gotten in trouble for driving without a license, or been pulled over for driving recklessly. He was nuts about his bikes, and otherwise no one seemed to question it. Not, of course, that the Greasers would have broadcast it if they'd known about Ricky's issues.  
  
“Were you in the hospital for a while?” Ted was looking at Ricky oddly. “Because I think I might remember that.”  
  
“Yeah, banged my head real bad and broke my arm and two ribs. It was a real bitch-”  
  
“ _Language,_ ” Alton sang.  
  
_Because we’re all four year-olds with precious, innocent minds that ought not to be corrupted by naughty words._  
  
But Gary couldn’t say that out loud, so he started counting the ceiling-tiles.  
  
“Alright then, it _sucked_.”  
  
“Mmm…” Alton shook his head, and Ricky fixed him with a flat look.  
  
“You’re kidding me.”  
  
“There are better ways to express ourselves without bad words.”  
  
“I’m telling you that my dad died in an accident that put me in the hospital, and you’re worried about me using bad words?” Ricky said bluntly.  
  
“He’s got a point,” Karl remarked, surprising just about everyone present. “Language seems pretty mild a concern compared to the pain of losing a parent.” Normally he was Mr. By-the-Book, and here he was saying ‘ah, not that big of a deal’.  
  
Alton apparently didn’t know how to respond to that, so he did what most people did: Changed the subject. “How would you say your father’s death affected you, Ricky?”  
  
“You mean, apart from not being able to get in a car like a normal person, and having panic-attacks sometimes when I got to get into a bus for a long trip?”  
  
“Yes, apart from that.”  
  
Ricky thought for a minute. “I guess I had to work my- _butt_ off to stay at Bullworth,” He said, rolling his eyes. “Can’t fail my classes because I’m on scholarship. Gotta take a lot of odd jobs to make sure my mom doesn’t have to work herself to death to make the rent. Gotta worry about things my mom thinks I shouldn’t be worrying about. And then I get stressed, and then things get ugly, and then I end up with migraines…” Ricky shrugged, almost nonchalantly. “It builds up.”  
  
“Is it just recently that you started getting professional help?” Galloway asked softly.  
  
“Yeah.” Ricky scratched his head. “Used to go after dad died, but when you can barely afford the rent therapy’s one of those things that ends up on the chopping-block.”  
  
“Good mental health should _always_ be a priority, Ricky,” Alton chastised.  
  
Ricky gave him another flat look and didn’t respond to that.  
  
“You on meds?” The words were out before Gary could stop himself. He’d kept his mouth shut in these meetings long enough, and he wasn’t accustomed to having to keep his mouth glued shut for so long.  
  
Ricky glanced at him warily. “Sometimes. Don’t always work, though.”  
  
A sudden memory sprung up from the depths of Gary’s mind: He’d gone to the Nurse’s office one day after class for his medication, and he’d remembered seeing a Greaser on one of the beds, lying with a wet cloth over his forehead and eyes. As Gary did not give a fuck about his fellow students, he hadn’t really paid attention at the time; but now it occurred to him that it might have been Ricky he’d seen.  
  
Huh.  
  
This information was only of mild interest to Gary. Ricky was not one of the more annoying Greasers; he’d always been the last to join in on the batshit things Johnny Vincent and the others got into. He wasn’t the yappy little sycophant that Peanut was, and he didn’t seem to be _as_ obsessed with the whole ‘Outsiders’ aesthetic as some of the others were. And maybe this was why: No time to be an annoying throwback when he was one of the few focusing on schoolwork. Gary would almost say that he felt a little bad for the guy.  
  
Except that Gary didn’t feel bad for people, because he didn’t give a shit.  
  
People sucked, and were not worth his time or _empathy,_ in spite of what everyone else seemed to think.  
  
So he sat back in his seat and didn’t say anything else.  
  
[---]  
  
Bambillo was a worthier opponent than Gary thought he would be.  
  
He was getting a _lot_ better at figuring Gary out, at finding out the little kinks in his brain that made him tick, and he’d been using them too: He'd really been picking at the fact that Gary had _genuinely_ believed that he could take over the school, that he could impose his will on the staff and student-body as he saw fit. "Look," Gary had responded a little edgily after about twenty minutes of Bambillo's poking. "You don't know Bullworth, alright? That school is a shit-show. You'd be surprised at what a kid can get away with there. Me trying to take over the school is pretty pale in comparison."  
  
"Or," Bambillo had challenged, relentless, "You could be viewing the situation through a delusional lens and not seeing things clearly."  
  
Gary wasn’t used to that; most of the doctors his mother threw at him weren’t that interested in figuring him out. They were interested in throwing a diagnosis and medication at him to satisfy his mother’s harping, which was incidentally how he ended up with the ADD diagnosis. It was fascinating but also annoying in a way, mostly because Gary didn’t like to think that he was that easy to figure out.  
  
Gary also suspected that Dr. Pilby- and maybe some of the other doctors- had given him some observations on Gary’s mother, because on this particular day Dr. Bambillo decided to poke the wound with a salt-covered bat.  
  
“Tell me about your relationship with your mother.”  
  
Gary stared at him for a few minutes. He didn’t respond, mostly because his brain had collapsed at the thought of having to speak candidly about his mother. Unlike the other things he could (and did) misrepresent to Bambillo, it was obvious that he already had some answers and if Gary lied he would know. Furthermore, he would probably draw conclusions about Gary’s feelings towards his mother, like maybe he was one of those screwed up kids that still loved parents that treated them like shit.  
  
“I sense you have a difficult relationship with her.”  
  
“You _sense._ ”  
  
“I sense.”  
  
“You mean, Dr. Pilby told you my mother is a raging Hell-Bitch?”  
  
“I didn’t say that.”  
  
“Yeah, but you’re thinking it. I’m nuts, Bambillo, not _stupid_.”  
  
“I didn’t say you were either of those things,” Bambillo sighed. “I’m merely questioning what sort of relationship you have with her. Though, I guess you’ve just given me a pretty important context-clue.”  
  
“You mean the ‘raging Hell-Bitch’ part? I’m not saying anything her high-society friends aren’t saying behind her back.”  
  
“Do you consider your mother abusive?”  
  
Gary hesitated on reflex. Not because he wanted to defend his mother, but because he had, for _years_ , kept guarded when it came to things about her. Never tell adults, never tell his doctors, never tell _anyone_ because it would inevitably get back to her and Gary would pay hell for daring to open his mouth about her. He could probably sit down with Tad Spencer and trade off ‘How Not to Piss Off Your Aggressive Parent’ tips all day long. They could probably compare a few scars, too.  
  
“You gonna report it to the cops if I say yes?” There was not a word to describe the sort of hell that she would reign down on him if CPS showed up and started asking questions about his home-life. When the authorities ran into situations like, say, a sixteen year-old trying to take over a school, one of the first places they tended to look for a deeper explanation was the parents and the child’s living-situation. Gary had no desire to repeat the weeks following his failed coup, when his mother had been at her angriest.  
  
“That would be my legal obligation, yes.”  
  
“Then no,” Gary said flatly. “She’s not. She’s the greatest mommy _ever_ , and that’s the story I’m gonna tell if CPS comes knocking on my door.”  
  
“I had a feeling you’d say that,” Bambillo remarked. “So, completely hypothetically, if your mother were _not_ the ‘best mommy ever’, what sort of things would she be doing to you?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know- smacking me in private, or public if I’m making enough of a scene to justify it. Maybe calling me a worthless asshole, wishing that she’d aborted me, regretting the day she took me home from the hospital- you know, the usual frustrations mothers express to their children.” Gary’s voice was filled with venom.  
  
Bambillo nodded easily, as though he heard people say things like that every day. But then, this was Bullworth: A _lot_ of mothers probably hated their kids here, given the quality of human being he saw walking down the street every day. “Okay. If you recall, at our last session we talked about your sense of empathy and your ability to interact with others harmoniously.”  
  
They had: Bambillo had given him some hypothetical scenarios, and Gary had absolutely bullshitted them by giving hilariously sociopathic answers to simple questions.  
  
(‘If someone kicked a puppy, how would you feel?’  
  
‘I’d probably tell them to step aside and let me show them how it’s done.’)  
  
“Oh, I vaguely recall,” Gary conceded, smirking.  
  
Bambillo’s smile was tight. “Well, let me give you another hypothetical- and you don’t even have to answer me this time, just meditate on what you feel and know to be true for yourself. Let’s say you’re in the park.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“And you’re just sitting there, minding your own business, and you see this mother and her young son. We’ll say he’s about seven.”  
  
Oh, Gary didn’t like where this is going. He was halfway to telling Bambillo to fuck off when it occurred to him that that sort of response would answer more questions than it would stump. “…Okay.”  
  
“They’re arguing. You can tell the little boy is upset- not misbehaving, not throwing a tantrum, but sad, like he’s about to cry. His mother is becoming aggressive towards him- you can’t hear what she’s saying, but you can assume she’s being unnecessarily harsh or mean towards him.”  
  
This was uncomfortable.  
  
“The little boy’s crying now, and the mother loses her temper and slaps him across the face. Then she drags him off, still crying.”  
  
Bambillo didn’t continue, and Gary finally said, “Fin? The End? Anything else you want to add?”  
  
Bambillo shook his head. “Nope. Just answer this question- to yourself, as honestly as possible- how do you think that little boy feels? And if it was within your power- if you had, one-hundred percent, the legal and moral right to walk over to the two of them and say what was on your mind, what would you say?”  
  
The other empathy tests had been simple enough to bullshit, mostly because they hadn't been personal. Bambillo must have taken those failures and meditated on them long enough to come up with this particularly shining example of sadism. Gary would be impressed if he weren't so pissed. And now Bambillo wanted him to keep quiet about his answer so he couldn’t lie (or feel pressured to give the socially-acceptable answer), or at least not as easily, since Bambillo wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between honesty and ‘I’m saying what you want me to hear’.  
  
And the truth?  
  
The truth was that Gary knew exactly how that theoretical kid felt, because he’d _been_ that kid: Getting grabbed and slapped and humiliated by his mother, public or private, and living with the constant understanding that something he was doing (obviously it _had_ to be him, because up until he'd been shipped off to Bullworth at age nine he'd believed that adults were always perfect and correct) that had made his mother upset, and she was _always_ upset, which meant he was _always_ doing something wrong, and boy, if that didn’t just fuck with a kid’s emotions?  
  
The truth was that if Gary had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, without any consequences, he’d walk up to the woman and slap her and ask her how it _fucking felt_ to hit in the middle of the damn park, with people around to see it, and then see if she was capable of any empathy towards her damn kid. He’d tell her son to buckle up and stop hoping that mommy’s going to validate him, that she’s a frigid, abusive bitch and she’s not worth his time or effort or love. And then he’d walk away.  
  
See, the thing was, though, it wouldn’t do anything but make _him_ feel better.  
  
Because if this hypothetical mother is anything like _his_ mother- and obviously that was what Bambillo was getting at- then she wouldn’t listen, because she would Always Be Right. He’d probably even make the situation _worse_ for the poor kid, because while this Theoretical Mother could not take her frustrations out on Gary, she _could_ take them out on Theoretical Son the second they got home; he was causing trouble for her, which inspired a stranger to cause her trouble and embarrassment, so therefore it would somehow be Theoretical Son’s fault at the end of the day. She would be a master at twisting any criticism of herself and directing it back at the person doing to criticizing, because it wasn’t even remotely possible that _she_ could be the fucked up one, no sir. She could hit her kid, she could scream at people who inconvenienced her, she could-  
  
( _she could turn the school against the new kid and never once question that decision because **obviously**_ _he’s plotting against her and **obviously** he deserves to be dealt with in the nastiest harshest way possible-_)  
   
A shiver ran down Gary’s back, and he sunk into the chair.  
  
Bambillo seemed content with the havoc he’d wrought for one day.  
  
“Alrighty then, something to think about for next week; I’ll see you out.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ted didn’t want to talk.  
  
That wasn’t surprising, since he didn’t and never had really struck Gary as the kind to share his feelings; more like he was the kind that bottled it up and took it out on the nearest Nerd that happened to be nearby when he needed a release.  
  
“Come on, Ted,” Alton prodded him. “It’s time for you to open up.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Everyone else has shared, Ted. We have to confront our problems before we can fix them.”  
  
Ted was tightening up.  
  
_What is it Teddy-boy? Never recovered from that one game you lost as a pee-wee football kid? Daddy wasn’t proud of you for ten seconds?_  
  
“Jesus Christ, _I’ll_ go,” Wade snapped. “This is painful.”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Alton insisted, still with that patronizing I’m-talking-to-a-really-stupid-two-year-old voice. “It’s Ted’s turn to share.”  
  
_Just_ _make something up!_ But then, Alton would probably know if they were lying; Gary assumed he had at least a basic knowledge of what they were there for.  
  
So Gary set his mind off a-racing while they waited for Ted to sack-up and share with the class. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be: Whether he was really schizophrenic or not, the medication did seem to have some effect in his cognitive processes. He couldn’t go off on the wild, erratic thought-processes and fantasies he’d had last year now. On one hand, it was frustrating because Gary couldn’t _lose_ himself in agonizingly boring situations like this anymore. On the other hand… Sometimes he really went out there with some of his shit, and nothing could slow it down or stop it unless it was really, _really_ -  
  
“I got molested by my mom,” Ted blurted out.  
  
That-  
  
That brought Gary to a screeching halt.  
  
He’d assumed that someone like Ted would be in therapy for something like unresolved trauma from the first time he won second place in some kindergarten sports competition, or daddy not giving him enough hugs as a kid, not mommy giving him… Well, giving him the kind of hugs parents weren’t supposed to be giving their kids. Gary, for the first time in a while, found himself genuinely shocked. Now, Gary didn’t exactly have a baseline for what was considered to be _good_ therapeutic practices: He had seen a bunch of therapists over the years, all forced on him by his mother, and they all seemed to be quacks (at least to him they did). But there was something that seemed a bit _off_ about a counselor pushing a kid to admit to a group of people (all of which he even went to school with) that he was molested by his mom. That seemed like the sort of thing that would be better off kept in private between therapist and patient- or at least in a group where _everyone_ had been molested, to keep things equal. And Ted _really_ didn’t look like he was comfortable admitting this shit to the group; in fact, judging from how far down he was ducking his head Gary was actually starting to suspect that Ted- _Ted-fucking-Thompson_ \- might be crying a little from the embarrassment.  
  
And then something really, _really_ weird happened:  
  
Gary felt a tingle of discomfort, a sort of tightness in his chest. It was the same way he felt when Bambillo sprung that hypothetical on him, and so he had to assume it was _empathy_ rearing its ugly-ass head; hell, it wasn’t really difficult to empathize with a guy who’d just had a really _horrifying_ secret laid out in front of a group of people- not the fun kind of embarrassing secret, like wetting the bed until you were twelve, but the really _serious_ kind that even Gary couldn’t chuckle at. Gary wouldn’t cry, per se, but his mother had humiliated him for things before in his life, in public too, and if anything of those things had been repeated here, in group, he’d be mortified.  
  
And pissed.  
  
But mostly mortified.  
  
(Actually, he’d be something like fifteen percent mortified, and eighty-five percent pissed.)  
  
It wasn’t clear whether or not the counselor was aware beforehand that that was what was going to come out of Ted’s mouth. But what he said next broke what was left of Gary’s self-control. “That’s very unfortunate, Ted.”  
  
Gary couldn’t help it- it was like being in a really dark comedy or something, and he just couldn’t take it seriously anymore. He let out a sharp bark of a laugh, and every head in the room whipped towards him. “Yeah, ‘unfortunate’ is a word that comes to mind! Maybe you shouldn’t have pushed him to blurt it out to us all?!”  
  
“Gary,” Alton said, with that _infuriatingly_ patronizing voice. “We’re here to _talk_ about our issues, not _repress_ them.”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake, I think the guy has a right to decide when _he’s_ ready to talk about something that bad! You want to screw him up worse by making him talk about it when he’s not ready?!” The counselor frowned, and looked like he was about to go into another speech about the Process when Gary received unexpected backup.  
  
“He has a point,” Galloway said, sounding hesitant. “It’s a very sensitive subject. Ted shouldn’t have to talk about it if he’s not ready to.”  
  
“And he’s pretty obviously not ready to,” Karl agreed.  
  
Out-voted, Alton was forced to drop it, and Ted was spared further embarrassment. He spent the rest of the meeting (insufferable crap about 'coping mechanisms' that came with a sufficiently patronizing little song) with his head down, not making eye-contact with anyone and not speaking a word. When it came time for them to pack up, he did so with a speed known only to those that had suffered unbearable humiliation.  
  
Gary, incidentally, left last that day, something he did every week to avoid awkward confrontations with anyone else in the group. Today, however, as he’d walked down the street and past the alley that ran alongside the community center a hand shot out and dragged him into it.  
  
Ted pinned Gary to the wall, his head smacking into the brick. Fury was etched into every part of Ted’s body.  
  
“If you breathe a word, to _anyone_ ,” He growled, “I swear to _fucking_ God, I will kill you. Do you understand me, Smith? I will _fucking_ kill you.”  
  
Gary nodded slowly, wincing as the rough, worn brick of the building dug into his back. “Yeah. Got it.”  
  
“I _mean it_ , Smith.”  
  
“I know you do. It’s fine.” Gary saw something in Ted’s eyes that made his chest feel funny again.  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“I said I wouldn’t,” Gary snapped. How many times did he need to assure him he was going to keep his mouth shut? (Okay, okay, so maybe Gary’s word wasn’t exactly worth all that much to anyone anymore, and that was kind of his own fault).  
  
“I mean don’t _look_ at me like that,” Ted snapped back. “Don’t look at me that way, like you, like you fucking _pity_ me or some shit.” His voice was shaking. “Fuck, _everybody_ looks at me like that when they find out-” Ted snorted sharply, and without humor. “-the ones that actually believe me, anyway.”  
  
If Gary had been looking at Ted with pity, it was unintentional; he was going more for ‘please don’t kill me, I’d at least like to have the chance to experience hedonism in my twenties before I die’. But what was more shocking, really, was that he kind of did feel… Yeah, that was empathy, and _pity_ for the meathead that ran the Jocks. Gary’s parents were assholes, big ones too, but at least they’d never done _that_ sort of thing to him, and he was bewildered to find that he actually did feel sort of bad for Ted. If their situations were reversed... Gary would probably doing the same thing to Ted that Ted was doing to him now.  
  
This was _incredibly_ uncomfortable.  
  
“I don’t care who did what to you,” He told Ted shortly. “And I’m not going to tell anyone.” He gave the larger boy a brittle smile. “You think they’d believe me? Everyone knows what a liar I am now.”  
  
Ted seemed to relax a little; he let Gary go, and the shorter boy winced as his back dragged along the wall as he slipped down. “Fine. Just- Fine.” Ted’s voice still sounded funny.  
  
“Can I go now, or did you want to crack my head against the wall a little more?”  
  
“Go. Fuck off. I don’t care.” Ted turned around and walked away, hands jammed into his pockets.  
  
Gary watched him go, just to be safe, and then quickly hustled to the bus-stop.  
  
[---]  
  
“So.”  
  
Gary did _not_ like the tone of Bambillo’s voice.  
  
Or that fucking smile on his face.  
  
“So _what?_ ” He snapped, slumping back in his chair and crossing his arms.  
  
“I hear you had an interesting group session the other day.”  
  
Gary scoffed. “And here I thought those were confidential.”  
  
“You defended your classmate,” Bambillo pressed on, not- as Gary was hoping he might- bite the bait and get into an argument about the legality of disclosing information from group therapy to a private psychologist. “You argued that he had a right to privacy regarding a personal trauma of his.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And I’m curious as to why you did it.”  
  
Gary groaned- this was going to be a _fun_ session. “Because he was embarrassed, alright? And I was embarrassed for him- I’m sure there’s some overly-long German word that encompasses the feeling.”  
  
“Yes, but why do you _care?_ People are shit, you hate them and can't stand them, they're all idiots that deserve to be crushed beneath your heel- so why do you _care_ what Ted feels?”  
  
Gary’s eyes rolled shut. “You know the answer to that.”  
  
“No, I don’t.”  
  
“You _do._ You’re just being an asshole.”  
  
Bambillo didn’t rise to the bait. If anything, he grinned wider and shook his head. “Humor me, Gary. Why do you care about Mr. Thompson’s feelings? Why does it matter if he’s embarrassed, or sensitive about his trauma?”  
  
He wasn’t going to avoid this question. Bambillo had proven that he would carry a debate into next week’s session if he had to. “Be _cause,_ ” Gary growled, “There’s some shit you should not be forced to talk about in front of a group of people unless you’re ready, and getting the bad touch from your _mother_ is one of those things.”  
  
Bambillo’s expression suddenly became very serious. “Gary-”  
  
“No, no, no, I am _not_ implying that my mom- or anyone else!- molested me. That requires someone to be closer than two feet to you at any given time, and she only got that close when she wanted to slap me around.” Oops- a little too direct for his liking. But then, Bambillo hadn’t called CPS yet (to the best of his knowledge), maybe considering Gary’s threat to play dumb.  
  
Bambillo relaxed, but only slightly; he’d already known what he needed to know about Gary’s mother’s physically and emotionally abusive tendencies, but apparently the possibility of some sexual indiscretions had put the fear of God into him. Curiously, Gary almost appreciated the concern, unwarranted thought it was; he wasn’t accustomed to authority-figures giving a genuine shit about his safety. “So, you did stick up for Ted out of a sense of empathy, because you understood that he was uncomfortable being prodded to discuss such a sensitive topic. You understood how he felt.”  
  
“Look, I’m not the one who’s got questions about whether I have a ‘capacity for empathy’ or not,” Gary protested, throwing his hands up. “You and the other psychologists are. I know how people _feel_ about shit, I just usually don’t _care._ ”  
  
“So why do you care now?”  
  
Gary hesitated. “I- I don’t know- there’s just something really _nasty_ about forcing a guy to talk about that sort of thing in front of people he barely knows? Or _likes?_ ”  
  
“Fair enough,” Bambillo conceded, tone mild. “If it helps any, you were right: It was inappropriate for Alton to push Ted into something he was clearly uncomfortable talking about. He wanted me to let you know that he was grateful that you spoke up.”  
  
Gary blinks. “Alton was grateful?”  
  
Bambillo shook his head. “Ted.”  
  
“He sees you too?”  
  
“I can’t tell you that,” Bambillo said evasively (so, ‘yes’). “But I did encounter him, and he did ask me to pass his gratitude along.”  
  
Gary might have been inclined to believe all this if Ted had not threatened him with bodily harm and death after that very same meeting. “He didn’t _seem_ very grateful. He kinda wanted to kill me.”  
  
Bambillo shrugged. “Maybe he thought it over, had a chance to distance himself from the emotions of the moment, and realized that you’d done something good.”  
  
Translation: ‘I had a therapy session with him and convinced him that not only would killing you be legally risky and inadvisable, but that you may have actually been a decent person to him for once.’  
  
“Whatever, I don’t give a damn about that meathead. Can we move on?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
But Bambillo was still smirking, and Gary wanted to punch him.


	5. Chapter 5

Wade had anger issues.  
  
Gary thought he might just _faint_ from the shock of it all.  
  
No, seriously, he might just pass out because he was holding his breath so that he didn’t start laughing hysterically and end up getting punched. Anybody who’d _met_ Wade Martin knew that the guy had anger issues; his own sister’s been known to blab about the stuff he’d punched when he was mad. From the sound of it Christy might very well be the only person, place, or thing he’d never hit, and it was probably because she was the sort of person to snap and stab him to death with a jagged piece of glass.  
  
“I hit things when I’m mad,” Wade grunted. “Period, end of story.”  
  
_Oh my God, you actually know that a period comes at the end of a story? Color me shocked._  
  
Gary glanced towards Galloway, and then had to quickly slap his hand over his mouth to muffle the laugh that nearly burst out. Because in that moment Galloway looked like he was thinking the exact same thing; and since he was the poor bastard tasked with grading Wade’s homework (when he deigned to turn it in, anyways), he _would_ be the one shocked by Wade’s grammatical knowledge.  
  
“Well, that’s not the _end_ of the story,” Alton said. “Obviously you are a young man with your whole _life_ ahead of you, and so obviously there is no _end_ to your story yet!”  
  
Wade groaned. “Are you on meth or something? Why are you such a freak?”  
  
Gary barked out a laugh and tried to turn it into a cough. Across the circle, Ted made a little noise that might have been a snort; Ricky and Galloway looked like they were trying not to smile. Good to know they were all on the same page about Alton, if nothing else.  
  
Their darling counselor didn’t seem to be fazed by it at all- so, in his defense, probably not meth. “I am not presently on any controlled substances, Wade,” He said with the same smarmy self-righteousness he said everything (though Gary took note of that ‘not _presently_ ’ bit). “And it is _not_ a good idea to deflect away from your issues by trying to distract with someone else’s! We’re talking about _you_ today.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I told you what my deal is: I have anger issues, and my dad makes me come to these stupid group meetings. What the hell else do you want to know?”  
  
“Is there a _reason_ you feel so angry?”  
  
Wade shrugged. “I don’t know- people are stupid, and I hate them? People are assholes, and I hate them?”  
  
_Who the hell knew that I would ever find something I have in common with Wade 'Personality of a Lead Doorstop' Martin?_  
  
“Ooh, Wade, _hate_ is such a strong word, you really shouldn’t use it.”  
  
“Is this your first counseling gig, man? Because I’m feeling like you haven’t been doing this really long, if you’re insisting that we all not swear or use words like ‘ _hate_ ’ like we’re in a goddamn kindergarten class.”  
  
“We’re not talking about me, Wade!” Alton sang, still not affected. Maybe this _wasn’t_ his first rodeo; though now that Wade rose the possibility, Gary saw the logic in it. Bambillo never gave a damn when he swore or said wild shit to get a rise out of him, probably because he’d been at the therapy game for a long time and had enough to build up a tolerance. If Alton was choosing to regulate the kind of words they used, then chances were he hadn’t seen much worse than what he’d seen in this room over the last few months.  
  
“What else do you want from me?” Wade snapped.  
  
“I feel like there’s something that triggers your anger, and you really need to think on what it is that’s pushing you to be so angry.”  
  
“You. That’s _you_ right now,” Wade responded flatly.  
  
_You’re fighting a losing battle, Alton,_ Gary thought, gleefully hoping that the counselor would keep pushing. Watching Wade lose his mind would make for a very entertaining afternoon. He was obviously trying to provoke Wade into revealing something more personal than simple temper-problems: He was probably hoping for a similar confession to the one Ted had given before, something that could be picked apart by the group in the hopes of 'healing'. Except that Gary was pretty sure that as far as Wade went, there wasn't any _one_ thing about Wade's life or past that had sparked his pugilistic tendencies; from what he knew about the guy, it had been years of shit at home between himself and his dad and his sister that had made him into the asshole he was today. Point was, Wade wasn't a nut Alton was gonna be cracking anytime soon.  
  
“What you should do, Wade,” Alton suggested calmly (smugly), “Is take a moment, after you’ve had an episode, to reflect on you behavior and ask yourself whether or not the response was proportionate to the stimulus. Is it _really_ worth it to put so much effort into something that’s really _nothing?_ ”  
  
_God, print it on a motivational poster you loser,_ Gary thought.  
  
“Fine, I’ll do that,” Wade grunted. “Are we good? Can we go now?”  
  
“Goodness no! We’re only ten minutes in. We’ll do a team-building exercise if there’s nothing else to say!”  
  
Everyone groaned.  
  
[---]  
  
It took two months worth of weekly sessions for the cracks in Gary’s reasoning to start showing up.  
  
Gary had underestimated Bambillo, but it may not even have been the doctor and his efforts so much as the timing: Gary had been on these new meds for a while now and slowly but surely, he realized he was seeing things differently than he once had. It was- and Gary swore that he would admit this when he was six-feet under, stone-cold and dead- Alton who’d actually given him the epiphany:  
  
“Reflect on you behavior and ask yourself whether or not the response was proportionate to the stimulus. Is it _really_ worth it to put so much effort into something that’s really _nothing?_ ”  
  
It was the last link in the puzzle: Bambillo had been pushing him for months to reconsider his way of thinking, ‘were they _really_ whispering about you, were they _really_ conspiring against you, even if they were was it _really_ worth all that effort just to screw them over, are you _sure_ you could have really taken over the school and kept things the way you wanted them?’ Was it worth it, Bambillo had asked, to sleep in the attic for months? Was Gary certain that Jimmy, who Gary swore was an idiot, was plotting a clever sabotage worthy of the retribution that Gary had eventually enacted? Was the ten-seconds of power he’d received worth all the hell he’d put himself through over the months to acquire it?  
  
There was this stupid cliché about the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and Gary thought it was stupid and cheesy because it _was_ , but really… It kind of applied here whether he liked it or not, because something earth-shattering dawned on him much like the sun coming out from behind the clouds after a very long stretch of rain, and he was suddenly seeing things much more clearly than he’d been before:  
  
_I slept in a dirty, dusty attic for over six months because I thought someone was going to try to hurt me in my sleep. I barely slept, I barely ate, and my grades went completely down the shitter because I spent my time plotting and trying to stay one step ahead of Jimmy and Petey. I thought they were plotting something way more elegant than just beating me up because I turned on them._  
  
_Jimmy and Petey were not plotting against me._  
  
_They weren’t talking in the dorm-room; I made that up._  
  
_The most they probably wanted to do was kick my ass, and that’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before._  
  
(Hallucinated, actually; which meant he still made it up, but not intentionally.)  
  
_I wanted to take over the school._  
  
_I actually **did** it._  
  
_I tied up the Headmaster._  
  
_I told myself I was a genius, but I provoked a bunch of kids into attacking each other and got a bunch expelled, which was **inevitably** going to backfire on me, because eventually their parents and the cops were going to get involved and **obviously** it would have been traced back to me._  
  
_None of anything I was doing was **ever** going to work out in my favor. Not long-term, anyway._  
  
_So why did I think it would?_  
  
The answer came to mind just as fluidly and clearly as those other cold, hard realizations had:  
  
_You thought it would because there’s something seriously wrong with your brain._  
  
That was terrifying.  
  
No, really, it was.  
  
Gary felt sick thinking about it. Because if it was true, if he’d imagined Jimmy and Petey and everyone else’s plots against him, if he’d even _hallucinated_ about Jimmy and Petey plotting in Jimmy’s room; if he’d deluded himself into thinking that he could, in fact, start a riot, tie up Crabblesnitch, and run the school in his stead and _not_ be arrested for it, then that meant that Gary had been completely out of control of himself. Something else had taken the wheel, had warped his perspective to a point where he was seeing things _completely_ differently than how they actually were. Everything he’d done had had a justification: Jimmy had to go down because he’d tried to pull a coup on Gary. Everybody else had to be manipulated to beat Jimmy into the ground (and because they were hopelessly stupid- Gary wasn’t quite backing down on that particular viewpoint yet, he’d been at Bullworth for too many years to start thinking that its students were especially intelligent). And Gary would be able to run the school because, because…  
  
He couldn’t even remember his thought-process.  
  
Had he even had one? Had there been any sort of logical ‘if I do this thing in this way, then this will happen as a result’ sort of thinking going on in his head?  
  
If there had been, then Gary didn’t remember it, and that scared him. At the beginning of the year it had started with 'take down the cliques', and somehow it had ended with him tying up Crabblesnitch and sending the rest of the school into a screaming, violent mess.  
  
_There’s something wrong with me,_ he thought, curling in on himself and staring blankly out the window as his mind was thrown into chaos. _I think there’s actually something really, seriously wrong with me._


	6. Chapter 6

Karl held out for a _while._  
  
Of course, he was a Prefect, and probably one of the better ones (at least in the sense that he didn’t give a shit which clique you were in, he’d drag you in anyway if he caught you breaking the rules), so he knew a thing or two about standing his ground and refusing to give into pressure. Gary didn’t get quite the same feeling he got from Ted- it was like Karl _knew_ he was going to have to do it eventually, and just wanted to put it off for as long as possible.  
  
“I was distressed,” Karl began calmly. “I was promoted to Prefect at school, and I was still expected to maintain steady A’s in my classes. I was preparing to apply for college, I was having trouble balancing my Prefect duties and my schoolwork, and then my grandfather died. I was very close to him, and it was very upsetting.”  
  
Geez, Karl was being awfully forthcoming. Gary hadn’t anticipated that: He’d thought the guy would be as withdrawn as Ted had been. But then, Karl was a rule-follower, and if an authority-figure was insisting that he share with the class, then he was going to share with the class.  
  
“I became depressed.” A pause. “It lasted a long time. And I didn’t see a way out of it, so I-” Karl stumbled slightly, but then pressed on, “So I swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills.”  
  
Dead silence.  
  
Much like with Ted’s little confessional, Gary found himself honestly stunned. Really, though, when he thought about it, it was maybe not as surprising as it looked: Karl had always been so tightly-wound, so carefully controlled in just about everything he did, and he was a crazy over-achiever to boot. It made plenty of sense that he would snap under the pressure eventually.  
  
“What happened next, Karl?”  
  
These sessions were almost over and Gary was so _goddamn_ thankful for it, because he was not gonna miss Alton’s consistently perky, smarmy behavior. Could this guy not muster up a _little_ change in mood, vocally speaking, for a guy who’d just claimed he’d tried to off himself? He sounded as lively as he had when- well, when he’d poked and prodded at Ted about the whole ‘molested by his mom’ thing. Empathy itched at Gary like a badly-knit sweater: He was considering asking Bambillo to do _something_ about getting Alton off the group-therapy circuit because no one else deserved to go through the hell Gary and the others had.  
  
“I woke up in the hospital,” Karl continued, eyes focused on the wall and not on anyone else in the circle. “Evidently my mother found me and called an ambulance.”  
  
Lucky dude: Gary’s mother probably would have thrown a party if she’d found his half-dead body in his room.  
  
“When did this happen?” Ricky asked curiously. “Recently, yeah?”  
  
“Winter of last term.” Karl rubbed the back of his neck. “I received sporadic therapy afterwards. For a while I seemed better, I think because I scared myself so badly with the failed attempt, but…” He shrugged. “I didn’t get better. So my mother and father insisted on me taking this group.”  
  
“Do you hate them yet?” Gary asked out of the corner of his mouth (Karl was seated immediately on his right).  
  
“What was that, Gary?” Alton asked cheerfully.  
  
“I was asking if Karl noticed any improvement,” Gary lied. “Since coming to this _wonderful_ group and getting to work with _you_ , Alton.”  
  
Karl’s lips were quivering, and Gary took no small amount of pride in the fact that he’d actually managed to make _Karl Branting_ smirk a little. He’d once been under the impression that the guy was uncrackable. “Yes, I’ve noticed a bit of an improvement,” Karl conceded. “Medication has helped too.”  
  
“Well, _I_ think,” Alton began, and Gary rolled his eyes (as did Wade, Ricky, Ted, _and_ Galloway), “That more important than _any_ pills would be to reduce your stress, Karl. Perhaps it would be better to reduce your workload!”  
  
Karl raised an eyebrow at that. “I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”  
  
“Well, it’s gonna _have_ to be possible if you don’t want another _incident_ …”  
  
“Hear that, Branting?” Ricky remarked. “Better lighten your workload if you don’t wanna kill yourself! ‘Cuz it’s _that_ simple, ain’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, if only you’d known that taking _one_ thing off your schedule was the difference between life and death,” Gary added.  
  
Karl nodded seriously. “I’ll have to take it under advisement, then.” He covered his mouth to cough, but Gary was pretty sure he saw a real smile behind it. This was some Twilight-Zone shit right here: Gary never thought he’d see the day when Karl Branting would unwind, never mind that it would take place in a goddamn group-therapy session with a Jock, a Bully, a Greaser, and a Teacher.  
  
When they were all back at Bullworth in the Fall, it was going to be a hell of a time.  
  
And apparently Gary was going to be there for it.  
  
[---]  
  
“So.”  
  
A beat.  
  
“So,” Gary countered.  
  
“Your mom wants you back at Bullworth.”  
  
Shock-fucking-shock, she wanted him back at the school he’d practically destroyed. He had to give it to the sadistic bitch: She really did know the best way to make him wish he’d never popped out of her clown-hole. What better punishment could she concoct but to put him right back in the last place in the world he wanted to be? This year he wouldn’t have to be suffering from delusions or hallucinations: There would actually be kids who wanted to kill him for what he did the year before.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Are you scared?”  
  
Was Gary _scared?_ Shitless.  
  
Was he going to _admit_ that? Hell no.  
  
Gary shrugged and leaned back in his chair, trying to make himself look as relaxed and unconcerned as possible. Bambillo was good, but he didn’t know everything and Gary still didn’t much like being transparent to anyone. “Not really. Inconvenienced, annoyed, whatever. Not scared.”  
  
“There are going to be a lot of angry students waiting there for you.”  
  
Gary snorted. “I avoided them well enough last year.”  
  
“Last year they weren’t looking for you. Last year they didn’t have a good reason to hate you.”  
  
Gary frowned. “What, are you _trying_ to make me paranoid? You want me hiding in the attic all over again?”  
  
“No,” Bambillo said, maybe a little too innocently. “I’m just trying to make sure that you confront the reality of the situation before you get thrown into the deep-end.”  
  
No, what he _wanted_ to do was get Gary to admit that the idea of going back to Bullworth invoked a deep, visceral fear in him. He’d screwed the pooch last year and going back again for another semester was going to be a form of hell the likes of which he’d never experienced at that school. He might as well walk in wearing a neon sign screaming ‘PLEASE KICK MY ASS AND BURY ME IN THE FOOTBALL FIELD’. “Obviously I am acquainted with the reality of the situation.”  
  
“There’s no harm in admitting you’re frightened. You’d have to be insane not to be.”  
  
“But I _am_ insane.”  
  
“No, Gary, you’re not.”  
  
“Don’t pull the ‘don’t call yourself crazy’ shit with me,” Gary grunted. “I’ll call myself whatever the hell I want.”  
  
“Fine,” Bambillo sighed. “But you don’t need to pretend that you’re not afraid. If you were frightened enough last year of imagined threats that you were willing to go to extremes to protect yourself, I have to assume you’ll be decently frightened by this _real_ threat this year. And I would prefer to stop you before you go to any other extremes to defend yourself. So, Gary, what _do_ you intend to do about it?”  
  
See, the problem was, Gary _had_ been considering sleeping in the attic again. He had a few other hidey-holes around town, but for the first two months of school the students of Bullworth were expected to stay mostly on campus. And if Gary started disappearing to his hidey-holes too often, there was a pretty good chance he was going to get flagged as ‘off his meds’ and dragged to Crabblesnitch for a lecture.  
  
Or expulsion.  
  
“Stick close to the teachers,” Gary said, trying not to grit his teeth at the prospect. “And the Prefects. Basically, anyone who will hesitate to let the other kids kick my ass.” Galloway and Karl would be at the top of that list. Galloway was decent, and Karl was straight-laced enough that even if he hated Gary’s guts, he wouldn’t allow anyone else to kill him. “I also plan to… _Not_ piss anyone off. No stirring the pot, no spreading rumors, no starting trouble: I’m going to be keeping my big mouth shut and staying out of everyone’s way.”  
  
“That does sound like a good idea,” Bambillo affirmed. “Making a concerted effort not to start trouble sounds like a good start. Think you’re going to be able to resist the urge for the long-haul, though?”  
  
“I’m already in enough trouble,” Gary said flatly. “I don’t need more.”  
  
There was a time when he would have taken that as a challenge.  
  
But reality _bites_ like that.


	7. Chapter 7

It was Gary’s turn.  
  
Gary chewed his words for a moment. There was a face-saving way to do this, and there was an embarrassing way to do it; he preferred the version where he could face the people in this room at Bullworth again and _not_ have them looking at him funny. Well, _everyone_ would be looking at him funny, but not the kind of funny that these guys might look at him.  
  
“Welp,” Gary begins. “I went nuts and took over my school. Most of you already know that.” He decided to hazard a grin. “Most of you were there.” All of them except… Galloway, actually. He’d been out that day.  
  
“And why did you take over your school, Gary?” Alton asked as though Gary had done something more banal, like stealing a bike or tagging a wall.  
  
Again, Gary considered before he spoke. It was another thing he’d noticed recently: Where once the words just sort of flowed out before, now there was more of a barrier between his brain and his mouth. He wasn’t sure yet whether he liked it or not. “I thought some people were saying things about me. Now, I think… I don’t think they were saying the things I thought they were. But because of that, I started to do things that really didn’t make a lot of sense- to anyone else, anyways. It made loads of sense to _me_ , even though it doesn’t now.”  
  
“Like?” Alton piped up.  
  
Gary twitched, displeased at the interruption, but continued. “What?”  
  
“Such as?” Alton prodded, and really, Gary kind of wanted him to shut up and stop asking for the details of his batshit reasoning.  
  
“Such as stuff like, ‘this person is laughing at me behind my back, so I need to sleep in the attic so they can’t find me at night.’” That was a bit of a mish-mash of his actual reasoning, but either way it got the point across. “Logic says that if someone’s laughing at you behind your back, you go do or say something to them; sleeping in the attic doesn’t do anything to solve the problem. I mean, you hear about people like me coming up with some weird justifications for why they do the weird shit that they do, but I don’t really have those- I just felt compelled to… React a certain way to certain things, without really thinking or caring about whether or not it would solve the problem.”  
  
Silence.  
  
Gary risked a look around the room, raising an eyebrow so that he looked defiant instead of sick with nerves. And he was weirdly relieved to see that the people who didn’t look bored look strangely interested in what he was saying. It was a peek behind the curtain of Gary’s madness and, all delusions of grandeur aside, they were probably pretty fascinated by it. “You thought people were talking about you behind your back, Gary?” Galloway asked.  
  
Gary shrugged again. “Yeah.”  
  
“Did you think they meant to harm you, or kill you?”  
  
Gary shuffled a little in the chair, forcing his expression to stay blank. “Some of them, sometimes, yeah.” That, really, was why he’d gone to the attic; the overwhelming sense that Jimmy might send someone into his room to beat him up or smother him had been enough to make him hide in the damn attic.  
  
“That must have been frightening.”  
  
Gary sniffed, looked at that bitch-turtle instead of making eye-contact with anyone. Somehow it was worse confirming it to Galloway than it was Alton. Saying shit like this to a stranger like Alton was one thing, because at least once he left at the end of the day they wouldn’t have to interact much. But saying it to Galloway, to someone he knew and would be working with next year… It was weirdly uncomfortable.  It didn’t help that Galloway just sounded so _understanding,_ too- not the condescending sort of ‘understanding’ that Alton had, but the kind that comes from someone who really _means_ it _._ “Kind of.”  
  
“This have something to do with Hopkins?” Ricky asked.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“That why you told us all that stuff about him?” Ted asked bluntly, like he’d just put the pieces together.  
  
“Uh, yup, that’d be a yes. Thought he was trying to screw me over, so I kinda went into ‘win at all costs’ mode. And my plans involved turning you guys against him.” Gary gave them an empty grin. “I’d _apologize,_ but I don’t think you’d believe me even if I _did_ mean it.”  
  
“Well, Gary, maybe you _should_ apologize,” Alton said sanctimoniously. “An apology goes a long-”  
  
“Don’t bother,” Ted grunted. “I don’t give a shit.”  
  
“So you forgive him, Ted?” Alton asked, sounding surprised.  
  
“I didn’t say that,” Ted grumbled. “I’m just saying I don’t need an apology. Don’t want one. Not sure he’d mean it anyway.”  
  
“Who gives a shit anyway?” Wade snorted before Alton could launch into a self-righteous speech. “It’s Bullworth: Everybody’s an asshole here, and apologies don’t mean much. Fuck off and leave me alone, and I’ll fuck off and leave you alone.”  
  
“Same!” Ricky agreed.  
  
“I suppose as long as you intend to change your behavior for the better, I don’t see why I can’t forgive you,” Galloway said easily. Too easily, if Gary was being honest: No wonder the guy drank, if he was earnest enough to say shit like that while living in Bullworth of all places.  
  
But to Gary’s shock, Karl nodded along. “It’s not a matter of forgiveness or not forgiving- as long as you don’t cause trouble, I’m fine with you.”  
  
Gary swallowed thickly. Forgiveness had never crossed his mind- he didn’t need it to keep functioning, and indeed had suspected that it would be withheld from him with great impunity. Gary did not forgive and did not forget, and he did not expect any different from those he wronged. Ted was ambiguous, but Wade, Karl, and Ricky’s declaration of conditional neutrality _and_ Galloway’s actual, literal forgiveness, was an unexpected surprise.  
  
_Damn._  
  
“Well, thanks for that,” Gary said, trying to keep a steady, easy voice. “Good to know at least a few people won’t be trying to stab me the second I turn my back next year.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“Wait, what?” Ricky asked dumbly. The expressions of his fellow Bullworth Academy occupants suggested they were just as confused.  
  
“What, did I not mention?” Gary grinned. “I’m coming back again this year!”  
  
Silence.  
  
“What, not excited?”  
  
More silence.  
  
“Maybe you forgave me too soon.”  
  
“Maybe,” Galloway said weakly.  
  
“May God have mercy on us all,” Karl whispered, rubbing his temples.  
  
[---]  
  
He was moving back into Bullworth tomorrow.  
  
Gary did not sleep.  
  
The medication screwed with his sleep-patterns- or maybe it was part-medication and part stress, or part one medication and part another, it was hard to say exactly. The point was that Gary was sleeping funny nowadays, and he was dreading being back at school with other people and classes and schoolwork that he had to keep track of. He was being held back a year because of how badly he’d screwed up last year, and it would be all too easy to screw up again and find himself even further withheld.  
  
He did not want to be at Bullworth any longer than he had to be.  
  
The only comfort he had to him was that he was probably going to be sharing with Petey again. Karl said he was Head Boy now, and that meant that the other kids might actually hesitate to fuck with him.  
  
Might.  
  
Otherwise, Petey wouldn’t start trouble with Gary. He was too passive to instigate a fight, and he would be even more hesitant to start anything with Gary. Best case scenario, they would spend the year in civil silence. Worst case scenario, Gary was going to have to fight to keep his mouth shut and _not_ bite back at one of the few kids that was capable of getting him insta-expelled.  
  
And Jimmy…  
  
Jimmy would be complicated.  
  
This year, Gary might actually have something to fear from him.  
  
And that was a grave he’d dug for himself.  
  
“Fuck my life,” Gary whispered, pressing his pillow over his face.  
  
Couldn’t go to Bullworth if he suffocated, right?  
  
_I’m so screwed._  
   
-End

**Author's Note:**

> So, cool story. 
> 
> I’ve been playing Bully for ages, and I have wondered (for just about ten years, tbh) what was actually going on with Gary- I mean, actually, clinically going on with him. Because it’s clear over the course of the game that there’s more to what’s going on in his head than ADD. Like, he starts off being an asshole, but with some restraint- like, he apologizes to Jimmy and Petey for going off on them in ‘A Little Help’.
> 
> So I began to research, and I actually landed on a very interesting coincidence: Gary's behavior in the game shares a lot of similarities as somebody who could be suffering from schizophrenia (namely, early-onset schizophrenia, because Gary's a teenager and schizophrenia is usually diagnosed in adults). I mean, I literally have a list of (roughly, some overlap) 15 symptoms referenced in my notes, and Gary fits the bill for almost all of them in one form or another. It was actually really interesting to realize there was some backing to my theory.
> 
> One of the things I enjoy the most with fanfiction is seeing if I can redeem villains to a certain extent while also staying true to their character. And I kind of wondered if I could pull off writing a character-study story that stays true to Gary's character (because he's obviously an asshole) while also exploring his character and examining the particulars of how this condition would affect him. It also gave me the opportunity to explore a few other characters as well.
> 
> Not to mention, this is ideally going to be a prelude to a Bully sequel that I'm writing. I wrote one years ago and never finished it, and so I've been pounding out the details of a new one ever since.


End file.
